journal posts

Entries tagged with nita callahan

[Nita begins by speaking into her journal. It's faster and easier and more personable. Which is exactly what she's going for.] Today's Thanksgiving- at least it is for Americans- and that combined with our visit from our ghostly feathered friend got me thinking about how the castle picks some holidays to mark and ignores countless others. Which got me wondering how many of us are from where and I realized that I really don't know.

This has probably been done about a hundred times before, but things change. Think of this as an exercise in population demographics, if you want. Or else a get-to-know you exercise.

[This part is written in very careful, very neat handwriting. She's making an effort to make this super legible.]

1. Name:2. World of Origin (if it has a name):3. Home country:4. Is there anyone else from your home here:5. Age:6. Species:7. Occupation:And just for fun:8. Hobbies:

I'll go first, since I asked and it'd be rude not to answer myself.

1. Name: Nita Callahan2. World of Origin: We just call it 'Earth.'3. Home country: The United States of America4. Is there anyone else from your home here: My sister, Dairine Callahan.5. Age: 16 (15 + 1 castle year)6. Species: human7. Occupation: student/Wizard8. Hobbies: Reading, stargazing and astronomy, listening to music, travel (Wizardry helps. Going off-planet is the best).

[Nita's not entirely used to addressing large groups of people. It may be kind of funny for a wizard who has saved the world multiple times to get stage fright, but well... here she is. She clears her throat.]

So a while ago, I remember someone talking about people offering lessons. Is anyone still doing that? I don't know exactly what I'm looking for yet...except not jujitsu. That didn't work out so well the first time.

But I'm beginning to think that having a way to defend myself other than wizardry might drastically increase my lifespan here.

Okay, if you haven't noticed all the sleepwalkers by now, I'm guessing that you've walled yourself up somewhere and have buried the journal or something.

But- [a yawn] - I'm not the only one to notice the other things, right? Something is just... off. It's like we've gone from the color part of The Wizard of Oz back to black and white, except we haven't made it back to Kansas.

It's not just me, right? It has to have something to do with everything else and I keep trying to look into it, but- [But she keeps spacing out over her Manual.] Let's just say it's not easy to focus.

[Nita awoke in a room in that was completely unlike the undecorated castle room that she had gone to sleep in. It was...space themed was totally inadequate to describe it. It made it sound like a child’s room, but it most certainly was not.

The furniture was sleek and modern, but not in that intimidating, untouchable way. It was crisp and clean, but comfortable. Best of all, though, was the walls.

It wasn’t just that they were painted with stars. It was that they were painted with an extremely detailed view of the stars from Earth. Even the ceiling was covered in near photographic detail. It was a delightful impossibility.

It was a little thing, in the long run, but it was nice to see the castle doing something relatively harmless. With a little laugh, Nita uses magic to draw a bright growing line between a couple of stars- the first line of a familiar constellation. Then she flips open the journal.]

Hey Dair! You gotta come see this.

[And later in the day, when Nita has a moment of her own time, she opens the journal again and writes a quick filter.]

[Nita arrived in the lobby of Paradisa with the characteristic bang! of a transport spell and the confused look of a person who is decidedly not where she expected to be.]

Unless they did some fast redecorating in the Crossings... Sker’ret- [She cut herself off, abruptly realizing that Sker’ret wasn’t there; none of the others were.]

Crud. [This wasn’t the first time that she’d found herself someplace unexpected because of Wizardry, but somehow she never quite got used to it. Still, there are no coincidences. If she was here- if something had interfered with her spell- then it had to be for a reason. So she takes a moment to look around, finally notices the journal sitting on the ground in front of her, and opens it up.

A journal with her name in it. Okay. Not the weirdest thing that she's come across. But as she flips through and watches the pages fill themselves with conversation, hears the voices of strangers. She'd never seen anything but the manual act like this.]

You've got to be kidding me.

[And there they were. Her words on the page, in her handwriting. Huh.]